Should we Manufacture Overseas?
When you’re planning to manufacture products, you must first determine whether you want to do it overseas or domestically. Each approach has its share of advantages and disadvantages. In the case of the United States, it’s a lot easier to move your manufacturing overseas due to the high staffing and costs that come with domestic production. The wage a group of people might accept varies widely depending on the changes in currency from one country to another. Some countries’ citizens have different standards of living and can survive on less money than you might expect. Companies take advantage of these cultural and currency differences to help them save money in the long run.
A company that decides to manufacture their products overseas will have to do a lot of work to improve the image of their product in their home country. People have the perception of products manufactured in other countries as being somehow of a lower quality. While this might have been true in a different era, it’s quickly becoming a thing of the past. Currently, the only difference between products manufactured overseas and products manufactured domestically is the location in which they were manufactured. Companies that come out with high quality products aren’t going to change their approach in a different location.
The manufacturing standards in one country are unique compared to the rest of the world. The government of the country in which a company decides to establish their business might not provide as much oversight as the government of the company’s home country. This discrepancy often results in labor violations and a perception that a company doesn’t care about their employees. The idea that companies run sweat shops in other parts of the world is the furthest thing from the truth. Every major company wants to look after their employees no matter where they’re located.
Customers of companies who manufacturer their products overseas might have to deal with longer shipping times and customer service difficulties. A company can remedy this problem by having their foreign distributor ship their products to a domestic location. That way the customer won’t have to wait for the product they ordered to arrive from some far off land. It will make it seem like the company makes their products in their country of origin. Customers don’t like to wait for their product to arrive. It’s the companies’ responsibility to make this particular type of wait time as short as possible.
When your company is deciding if some of production overseas make sure you look at all angles. For instance in the case of balloon manufacturing you would need to look at production and delivery time, quality control, and rules for producing the products in your home country. With any product you will want to evaluate the benefits and disadvantages of possibly moving some or all of your manufacturing overseas.
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Act Fast: Big Ideas Worldwide Invention Contest
Get Your Invention on the Market with the Big Ideas Worldwide Invention Contest!
Thomas Edison was quoted as saying that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Inventors put in countless hours developing their inventions, but often the missing link is getting the invention to market. So how can inventors get help?
If you want to go it alone, you’ll have to raise money to build the product, hire a marketing and sales team, and hope it works. It’s a risky and challenging road. One of the quickest and easiest ways to get your product to market is through a licensing deal with a company that has experience taking products to market. A great way to get your invention in front of such a company is via an invention contest. Today we’re please to announce The Big Ideas Worldwide Invention Contest.
During the month of February xClosure is running a national search campaign to find 5 products to market nationally. Winning the contest involves 3 steps:
- Fill out the application here before March 1st
- 10 finalists will present in person or via the web to a panel of live judges on March 21st
- 5 winners will be selected to have their product marketed
This is an opportunity to tap into the talent of an experienced marketing team. All product descriptions, details and files submitted are protected under a mutual NDA/non-compete/non-circumvent agreement to protect your idea and product. So take 10 minutes to fill out the application at http://www.xclosure.com/application-page and good luck!
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Performing Market Research
Key to the success of any business is market research. In order to know the needs and desires of customers you really have to do some research. You need to know price points, products, design, etc. Once you know what your customers like you can really cater to them.
Market research needs to be done regularly. Just doing market research every once in a while is not good enough. Trends are always changing, the economy is always changing, and your demographic is constantly changing. Keeping on top of all of this is incredibly important.
One way that market research can determine what products should sell is by watching sales. By analyzing sales they can determines which items sell the most. Analyzing sales can be done in a store by store basis as well as on a larger scale. This is important, because maybe you just need to see what you should be bringing in more of and what you should be bringing in less of.
Analyzing data can help determine the best price point as well. Just because something has a high retail value doesn’t mean that people want to pay full price and through analyzing sales data researchers can determine how much money it is actually sold for on average. This allows stores to set a price point for their store.
Market researchers also look into the demographics surrounding a company. This helps determine what the people can afford as well. Demographics include income and you can’t put a high end retail store near a bunch of trailer parks. It is not likely that your business will do well, so market research on demographics can be incredibly helpful.
Another way that market researchers gather information is through taking surveys. Surveys can be done in stores, via the internet, or over the phone. Some surveys are even done by mail, but these are less likely now-a-days. Surveys are a quick and simple way to gather a lot of different information. They delve into demographics, product, price, customer service, etc. Pretty much anything you can think of and usually with a “is there anything else you’d like to mention?” addendum. Those interested in taking surveys can find companies that are administering surveys from the best paid survey directory, and companies who wish to offer surveys can find people willing to take surveys to get market information.
When surveys are used to gather information a lot is accomplished and without a lot of excess research needed. There is no clutter to it; it’s just people answering specific questions that get the answers that you are looking for.
Implementing market research is essential to the success of a company. It helps to guide the company in the right direction and creates a lower risk of failure. Investing in market research is well worth it.
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